What would you do?

bytinyteamonMarch 16, 2015

It was just after BSF last Wednesday, we stopped by the park where everyone was going with their lunches to play, then we were going to meet daddy at Costco for a quick lunch of our own and get some necessities: all our food. Maria was in school, and we just had the boys. Their nap time is around 12:30 which we are usually home prior to, with a small window of a few minutes before and after that time, otherwise it is quick destruction.

Andrew was going to be late, so we got gas, the minutes ticking away, it was noon. We were pushing it, but it was too late now to do anything differently. We went in, washed hands, ordered cheap food, and started shopping. All of a sudden the boys were whining, they wanted down, they wanted everything and nothing at the same time, their hands started having magnets to each other in a harming kind of way. We were pushing a heavy cart to the sound track of whining which in many ways was our own fault. Andrew unbuckled them and let them get down, because he forgot they were crazy.

It was 1pm.

I panicked, we had to gooooooooo.

There are no words to describe the pure necessity, the critical, pivotal meaning of naps. My heart started pounding, 1pm? It was go time, I looked at our full cart to my right, and the two boys who had hidden inside of some sort of wicker pool storage for sale to my left. Being a kind, supportive type of wife, I pointed my finger towards the front of the store, “Go, line, pay,” and turned my eyes towards the boys.

“Go! Go guys, go find daddy, who can find him first, run, go, run, let’s go, time to run, get going.” I figure the longer I am talking about the one thing I need them to do, the less likely they will talk about reasons why not and follow my waving hands towards the cart rolling towards the front, past all the people congregating at the sample tables elbowing each other.

Finley starts climbing out of the pool storage.

Elijah bends his knees… “I hav’ta go potty!” which is Elijah speak for we have about 3o seconds to get him to a bathroom.

“Let’s go,” and I start walking down the aisle towards the big, high traffic aisle, Andrew hopefully in a line by not, Finley running towards him just in front of me. We had to run or all hope would be lost, and the boys would be a flailing mess, we had only seen the prelude.

I look over my shoulder, Elijah had a smile–and wet pants.

He climbed out of the fun new pool storage. He’s not a big pee-er, it’s probably just on his pants, I kept walking, about to turn onto the main aisle. I see Finley up ahead, my walking is making Elijah run to catch up to me from behind. I look back at Elijah just before I turn the corner towards the front of the store, which is when I see something.

Roll out of the bottom of Elijah’s pant leg.

It’s small.

It’s round.

It’s poop.

He is about 25 feet behind me.

He doesn’t stop running, it’s about 10 feet behind him now.

I hear Finley crying for me just ahead of me, because now it’s 1:10 and they are loosing it.

Elijah catches up to me, smile on his face, ready to go. Andrew is way up ahead in line, trying to check out…

I hadn’t stopped walking, I had turned the corner while I was slowly realizing what I had seen. We are surrounded by carts and people, now blocking the pool fun aisle. Elijah runs ahead to catch up to Finley and Andrew. My purse is far ahead, in the cart that is mostly unloaded….

I see the boys running ahead of me to catch up to Andrew, the aisle now 10 feet behind me.

Oh Amy, I’m so glad someone has the same sentiments about naptime for their two toddlers that I do. I have been told on several occasions that I am rigid and ebabling the children to not be flexible because we need to be home from 1-330… If we are late for nap I start panicking and the kids melt down exactly like this… Honestly o don’t know what I would have done in this particular Costco run scenario but I know I’ve had similar experience, I think my subconscious blocked them from my coherent memory as a survival tactic. Love you and your kids. Poop and all.

Hahahaha, yes! You understand my worries, girl! I went to the woman’s retreat a couple weeks ago, I checked the time, it was 11:30 and I felt my heart move to ‘go time’ even though I was faaaaaar from home 😉

Run to the car lol….Naomi is 20 months and after a few embarrassing meltdown I learned to stay home for nap time no matter what(she can’t fall asleep anywhere but in bed with me nursing her to sleep so very limiting)

LOL Years back I was on the other side of a similar story. My Mom & I had a small clothing store for ladies and children. In the children’s area we had a small wooden slide and kept a few books and toys underneath for the little ones to play with. One day a mother and her child stopped shopping and left abruptly. I quickly stopped putting the toys away under the slide when I noticed a pool of pee surrounding a pile of poop. Now we understood why the mom had made such a b-line to leave our store. Guessing she was pretty embarrassed, too! We cleaned up the carpet and watched our little shoppers a bit closer. =) It all turned out ok!

Ack! I’ll tell you what I DID do when something similar very recently happened to us. My 3.5 year old has been potty trained for a very long time. She never has accidents. Never. Ever. We went to the YMCA pool for a fun little swim on a Sunday evening before a Monday school holiday. This is an important fact because there were an extra ton of folks there that evening wanting to enjoy the pool with their littles too. I was sitting about 2 feet from my daughter (you must be at most an arm’s length distance away even if kids are wearing life jackets). My girlie was not particularly busy doing anything but just splashing a bit. I looked away for one SECOND to console another of my daughters on her failed attempt at passing the test to get a pink wristband. When I looked back I saw something floating next to my little one. I quickly inspected and was in shock and horror. I even went so far as to tell the life guard who was sitting right there that in no way could this have been my daughter’s since she’s trained!!! I brought the little stinker into the bathroom where I quickly learned she was the culprit. They had to shut the pool down for 1/2 hour and all of the parents and kids were giving me funny or disapproving looks when I went back in to fess up and apologize! I wanted to help them clean it but it was against protocol. It was HORRIBLE! They were so kind about it and kept telling me “it happens all of the time”. The “funny” part was, the lap pool was open so they transferred everyone to that pool but moments later, some other child puked in that pool. So everything was shut down and all you could hear throughout the lobby (we changed and headed out in a quick hurry) were grumblings of how/why/who. When I looked in the big windows to the pool area where everyone was waiting along the sidelines, I saw one of my friends and mouthed to her, “IT WAS US!” She laughed. I laughed. The poop got cleaned up. No thanks to me. 🙂
PS Please tell me they sell the organic dried chewy banana slices at your Costco. They are a divine treat!
PPS Sorry to talk about poop and mushy banana slices in the same comment.

I would put pull ups on a child that goes from “I need to pee” to “I just went poopoo” in 30 seconds *lol*

I would break down and cry, followed by a stern talking to DH about keeping promises and being on time. And a quick walk of shame to the next staff member about my child’s accident in aisle 17 would probably also be in there somewhere.